Film

September 16, 2009

On a complete whim I watched ‘Casablanca’ the other day
after nearly a quarter century. I am glad to report it has not lost of any of
its crackling smart impact. If anything its distilled humor has only intensified
with the passage of time. The delivery of the movie’s lines was accentuated by
the deliberate concision of their words. While the 1942 movie is full of crisp
cynicism and probably offers more memorable lines, the following brief exchange
has remained with me.

Let me set up the scene for you. Annina, a Bulgarian woman
who wants to escape a Europe tormented by the Nazis and escape to America via
Casablanca, approaches Rick (brilliantly restrained Humphrey Bogart), a café
owner of great influence. The woman wants her husband to win some quick cash at
Rick’s casino and needs the owner’s munificence. Captain Renault (a memorably unscrupulous
Claude Rains) is the eminently pliable French prefect of police whose blessings
are essential to leave Casablanca.

Annina: Monsieur
Rick, what kind of a man is Captain Renault?

Rick: Oh, he's just like any other man, only more
so.

Then there is Senor Ferrari, who owns café Blue Parrot but
wants to buy Rick’s café. In a scene there is a character beseeching him for
help. His response:

Senor Ferrari: As
the leader of all illegal activities in Casablanca, I am an influential and
respected man.

Let me cite three more and move on.

There is scene where Rick is chatting with the Nazi officer
Major Strasser along with his underling Heinz and Captain Renault.

Major Strasser: Are you one of those people who
cannot imagine the Germans in their beloved Paris? Rick: It's not particularly my beloved Paris. Heinz: Can you imagine us in London? Rick: When you get there, ask me! Captain Renault: Hmmh! Diplomatist! Major Strasser: How about New York? Rick: Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I
wouldn't advise you to try to invade.

There is a character
called Ugarte who sells exit visas for a premium. Rick does not particularly
like him. Check out this exchange between them.

Ugarte: You
despise me, don't you?

Rick: If I gave
you any thought I probably would.

In an early scene Rick denies an influential German banker entry
into the casino. Incidentally, Carl in the exchange is Rick’s
waiter-cum-manager-cum-accountant-cum-resistance.

Rick: Your cash
is good at the bar. Banker: What? Do you know who I am?

Rick: I do.
You're lucky the bar’s open to you.

Woman:
What makes saloonkeepers so snobbish? Banker: Perhaps if you told him I ran the second largest banking house
in Amsterdam. Carl: Second largest? That wouldn't impress Rick. The leading banker in
Amsterdam is now the pastry chef in our kitchen. Banker: We have something to look forward to.

(Some of the bankers today should have met a similar fate,
not that there is anything wrong with being a chef.)

More than anything else Casablanca endures over six decades
after it was made, and that too at the height of the bloodiest conflagration
that the world has seen, is because director Michael Curtiz and his writers
made a sharply defined entertainer. The fact that he made it on the margins of
the Second World War gave it authenticity even while it was laced with all the
levity and license of a Hollywood film. The beauty of Casablanca is that every
time you watch, you feel it always existed as a finely polished finished product.
You do not see the labor behind assembling all the nuts and bolts.

Since no compelling is art is free from flaws, let me
nitpick a bit in conclusion. There is a glaring problem of continuity in one of
the scenes.

It takes place at the Paris railways station when Rick and
his faithful musician friend Sam are waiting for Ilsa (divinely distant Ingrid
Burgman). There is a heavy downpour as Sam delivers a note to Rick from Ilsa
saying she would not be joining him. As Sam hurries Rick up to catch the
departing train, the two in their soaked up raincoats enter the platform.
Coming in they are dripping with water but in the very next frame as the camera
changes angles, their raincoats are totally dry. Here are the pictures of those
frames.

April 27, 2009

Tangential memories are as crucial as core memories. Actor,
director and producer Feroz Khan, who died in Bangalore at 70, is a crucial
part of my tangential memories at age nine. As a Boy Scout in 1970 I made my
first independent trip without my mother. That’s when I first saw Feroz Khan.

An ill-stitched pair of khaki shorts, a shirt two sizes too
big, a red and blue neckerchief, a maroon cap, knee length socks, and maroon canvas
shoes barely clinging on to my scrawny body together created an image that was
at once laughable and pitiable. I remember feeling reassured that I was not the
only one who looked ridiculous. Mafat Patel, the accompanying teacher, looked
equally so in his uniform. The man who otherwise projected the image of a learned,
tough and distant teacher dwelling the stratosphere was at once brought down to
the terra firma to be among the lesser mortals.

As part of the Boy Scout trip experience we were shown a
movie called “Oonche Log” starring Ashok Kumar, Raaj Kumar and Feroz Khan. Raaj
Kumar and Feroz Khan played Ashok Kumar’s two sons, the former an obedient and
upright police officer Srikant and the latter (Khan), a bit of a pleasure-seeking
goofball called Rajnikant. The point of showing that film, as I discovered in
retrospect many years later, was to hammer into our impressionable minds the
idea of regimental discipline that Ashok Kumar’s character Major Chandrakant
represented.

I distinctly remember the scene towards the end of the film
where Major Chandrakant, who resolved all challenging situations of life by
caning whoever was nearby, decides to lash his police officer son Srikant (See
the accompanying scene; cue at 3.02). There was nothing subliminal or subtle about
showing this movie to a bunch of Boy Scouts. We were being told without any
nuance whatsoever that those who stray will be whipped. This predated the
Taliban by 44 years (the movie was made in 1965 although I saw it in 1970.)

What caused unintended hilarity in those days during the
open air screening of movies was that sound and video occasionally went out of
sync. The particular clip I have attached here is the one where sound went out
of sync with the video. The result was that the lashing happened first and the
sound of that lashing was delayed a second or so. We felt the character’s pain
only when we heard the sound by which time Raaj Kumar had an unrelated
expression.

The reason why I remember Feroz Khan’s character Rajnikant
is because he was the nonconformist son who sang songs and wore natty clothes. As
a boy growing up in a provincial town I saw possibilities in Khan’s portrayal.
Over the years I realized that Feroz Khan’s innate talent was devoured by his
equally innate flamboyance. Style seemed to trump substance in his career.
Blessed with debonair good looks because of his mixed Afghani-Iranian heritage,
Khan’s career was more about being slick than being talented even though he
clearly had a remarkable screen presence. In his last movie ‘Welcome’ and many
others that preceded Khan gave the impression that he was mocking himself and
saw the medium of cinema as a platform to indulge his own colorful, non-serious
view of himself.

Contrary to what his body of work might generally suggest
Khan had recognizable acting skills that did break through his flamboyance once
in a while. Interestingly his last film ‘Welcome’, where he played a caricaturized
underworld boss RDX, did justice to the persona that Khan had created for
himself. His death may not prompt scholarly appraisal of his career but he was
in many ways a unique presence in the self-absorbed world of Hindi cinema.

April 10, 2009

The news of the prolific Hindi film director Shakti Samantha’s
death at 84 played out before my eyes several moments from his many movies. Not
a particularly arresting filmmaker, Samantha was never cheap. There is
something to be said for a filmmaker who helmed movies which in many ways
defined the core character of Hindi cinema in the 1960s and 70s. Apart from
everything else Samantha will be remembered for creating some of Rajesh Khanna’s
best films such as “Aradhana”, “Kati Patang” and “Amar Prem.” Admittedly, not
the kind of films that I personally liked, they all had the untouched innocence
of the era that Samatha did well to capture.

Quite easily one of the last giant names of that period,
Samatha’s passing ought to mean a great loss for Hindi cinema. This is an old
grievance that I have with those who practice in the craft of making Hindi
movies. They have failed institutionalize their own kind in the form of a
museum/archive. It is time someone did that. If I had the money I would. Here are
a couple of memorable moments from Samantha’s films.

March 29, 2009

“…I'm not interested in the audience finding me likable. Gandhi is
extremely un-likable. A fucking stubborn bugger…” Sir Ben Kingsley says in an interview
with The Guardian. Out of context this comment can be quite startling. The problem is when read in context it does not particularly
become less startling even though the stubborn part is absolutely accurate. Fucking and bugger? Not so much.

Here is the context.

“Kingsley is promoting
a new movie, Fifty
Dead Men Walking, in which he plays a British Special Branch officer in
1980s Belfast. The film is based on the book of the same name by Martin
McGartland, a former IRA informer. McGartland is played with wide-boy aplomb by
Jim Sturgess; Kingsley is his handler, Fergus, a reticent Lancashireman who, in
the absence of his own son, to whom he no longer talks, comes to feel
unexpectedly paternal about his young, paid sneak. On paper, this sounds
suspiciously sentimental; on screen, it is anything but. The film is very
violent, with several long torture scenes. When I watched it, I spent a lot of
time with my eyes closed. And then there is Kingsley, who turns in a
performance so stubbornly low-key that he renders Fergus almost invisible - an
incredibly brave thing for an actor to do. "Yes, invisible," says
Kingsley, solemnly. "My wife said that. 'Baba!' she said. 'You've made him
invisible.' But that is what he is; that is what he has to be." Baba? Oh
dear. But anyway... Did it feel courageous, making Fergus so very quiet? The
risk is that one's work might not be noticed. He says not. "What I despise
is when I read scripts, and it says: 'Enter Derek' and then in brackets: 'You
gotta love this guy.' I'm not interested in the audience finding me likable.
Gandhi is extremely un-likable. A fucking stubborn bugger. David Kapesh [his
character, a philandering academic, in Elegy, from the novel by Philip Roth],
he won't suffer fools. I want my character to be seen, understood, not
loved." Still, a lot of actors - most, probably - long to be loved; that's
why they became actors in the first place. "You may be right. But I don't
want having to love me getting in the way of my story."

March 27, 2009

Quite predictably, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’s Freida Pinto is
being positioned by her handlers as a culturally neutral actress rather than an
Indian one with international appeal. "Freida can't be compared to
Aishwarya (Rai), because we're not pitching her as an Indian girl in
international films. Freida is a true global face," Anirban Das, CEO of
her management company, was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph.

The Telegraph’s Dean Nelson reports that Pinto is now the
highest paid Indian actress internationally at two million pounds or a little
over three million dollars. That fee is supposedly higher than Rai, widely
regarded as the biggest export from Hindi movies to Hollywood.

It makes sense to project Pinto, an actress of fairly modest
talents, as culturally neutral rather than Indian. That can expand the range of
her international assignment. While she has expressed a willingness to work in
Hindi movies, so far Hindi filmmakers do not seem to be falling over each other
to cast her. Hindi cinema’s predispositions toward a certain kind of female
form are well known. It is true that in
recent years the definition of female beauty has become far more eclectic than
ever before. However, mainstream movies still gravitate around fair-skinned,
busty and obviously well defined women. Pinto does not meet those standards.
Although the fabled size zero has definitely become a benchmark for many young
actresses, the median size of Hindi cinema heroines is still bigger.

It is possible that Pinto might yet choose to work with some
of the more compelling names in India. However, once you get used to a price
tag of three million dollars, which is really quite low by Hollywood standards,
it is hard to work at much lower rupee prices that she is bound to be offered.
Her current fee converts to about Rs. 150 million, a figure still unreachable
for most stars, both male and female, in India. Why would she compromise both
on money and exposure by accepting Hindi assignments?

She has tasted blood with Slumdog’s success and would like
to make as much out of the next ten years of her prime career as she can (She
is 24). Most female stars begin to wane in their mid-30s unless you are a Meryl
Streep, who is 59, or Kate Winslet, who is 33. Whatever little we have seen so
far of Pinto, is nowhere close to either.

March 25, 2009

In movies I have a weakness for great shots and in
literature for great lines; both so often at the cost of everything else. I
just saw the trailer of the Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi’s latest ‘The Song
of Sparrows’ and found some extraordinary frames. Here are a couple of them.

March 01, 2009

It is Sunday morning and it is as good a time as any for a
random song. I have not understood why songs rise from the obscure recesses of
my mind without any provocation whatsoever and then kept looping themselves
throughout the day.

While growing up in the 1960s one had to wait for song
request shows on the radio to occasionally find what one desperately wanted to
hear. Of course, one could always buy the gramophone records but who had the
money for them? It is ceaselessly amazing that sitting in the very suburban
Naperville at 6.30 a.m. on Sunday, I can think of the 1958 Khaiyyam-Sahir
Ludhiyanvi masterpiece “Cheen-o-Arab Hamara” from ‘Fir Subah Hogi’ and find it in seconds. Raj Kapoor
draws you in the world of the homeless with Sahir’s somewhat manic depressive
lyrics.

You might find the pace a bit slow but there is no denying
the inherent melody. Also, I like the use of the accordion.

February 28, 2009

Salman Rushdie has not gotten over that a novel he considers a “corny potboiler” has become such a massive critical and commercial success called ‘Slumdog Millionaire.” Pegging a huge piece on film adaptations of novels over the decades on the success of Slumdog Rushdie has written an obviously well-informed piece in the Guardian of London.

“What can one say about Slumdog Millionaire, adapted from the novel Q&A by the Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup and directed by Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan, which won eight Oscars, including best picture? A feelgood movie about the dreadful Bombay slums, an opulently photographed movie about extreme poverty, a romantic, Bollywoodised look at the harsh, unromantic underbelly of India - well - it feels good, right? And, just to clinch it, there's a nifty Bollywood dance sequence at the end. (Actually, it's an amazingly second-rate dance sequence even by Bollywood's standards, but never mind.) It's probably pointless to go up against such a popular film, but let me try,” Rushdie writes.

If the piece had been written by a lesser writer, I may have suspected jealousy as the motivation. But it is Salman Rushdie and to protect my own illusions about an enlightened writer I would like to believe that his perspective is prompted by something far more cerebral than that. I think Rushdie makes a valid point about the last dance number ‘Jai Ho’ being well below the Hindi movie standards. His point about Swarup’s novel being a “corny potboiler” is equally accurate.

I was particularly struck by this comment by Rushdie: “In an interview conducted at the Telluride film festival last autumn, Boyle, when asked why he had chosen a project so different from his usual material, answered that he had never been to India and knew nothing about it, so he thought this project was a great opportunity. Listening to him, I imagined an Indian film director making a movie about New York low-life and saying that he had done so because he knew nothing about New York and had indeed never been there. He would have been torn limb from limb by critical opinion. But for a first world director to say that about the third world is considered praiseworthy, an indication of his artistic daring. The double standards of post-colonial attitudes have not yet wholly faded away.”

One can argue that the reason why an Indian film director has not chosen to do a Slumdog on New York is because they are generally insular and self-absorbed. It is not because they feel inhibited by their own lack of familiarity with New York low-life. It is because they operate in a market they believe will never be saturated.

Rushdie’s response to the Slumdog success in the form of a long essay lends both the film and the book scholastic seriousness it does not deserve.

February 23, 2009

Somewhat overlooked in the hoopla over the two Oscars for A R Rahman is the veteran Hindi lyricist and filmmaker Gulzar who wrote the song 'Jai Ho.' Gulzar is enjoying an extraordinary revival in his long career as a song writer that began in 1963 with the absolute master of Hindi cinema music Sachin Deb Berman.

Born Sampoorna Singh Kalra who goes by the lyrical pen name of Gulzar the 72-year-old is a renaissance man of Hindi cinema having directed close to 20 films, written some outstanding Hindi literature, and composed lyrics for close to a 100 movies. This apart from many private albums.

In the past five years or so Gulzar has written some of the biggest hit songs in Hindi cinema. Known for capturing quirky ideas and emotions in his songs Gulzar is equally at ease with charming imagery in his songs. In January I had asked you which Oscar nominated song the following lines are from:

Under a sequined blue sky…

Spent nights dancing on burning embers…

Taste the night, it tastes like honey

They are all from Jai Ho.

More on Gulzar later but in the mean time here is a brilliant number from his first film as a song writer called 'Bandini' directed by Bimal Roy.

Correction: A fellow blogger named Pavan Jha, who runs a definitive fan site called gulzaronline.com has pointed out that 'O Panchhi Pyare' was not written by Gulzar but Shailendra. I am removing 'O Panchhi Pyare' video and replacing it with 'Mora Gora Ang Lai Le' which was written by Gulzar. Apologies to both the late Shailendra and Gulzar.